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displays on so many trees and shrubs, such as pieris. But with blossom on many fruit trees now at its peak, frost can kill flowers before bees have had a chance to pollinate them. When this happens the blossom will fall without developing any fruit

.Beefsteak tomato plants are as robust as any other greenhouse variety, taking up just as much space, but producing a fraction of the total yield you would expect. Yes, individual fruits are bigger, but in my book bigger isn't always better!Rather than producing

'Gardener's Delight' or any one of my favourite reliable performers instead.The crop looked quite reasonable, as my picture shows, but the fruits really didn't have much flavour. They developed to a pale yellow colour rather than white, which does make

, brought into the warm and protected environment of my greenhouse to ripen in time for Wimbledon. When I came to harvest them, bowl in hand, the fruits were gone.Now it's the blackberries, which are just starting to ripen and will hopefully provide rich

was a child. Like this plum, the trunk had a great rotting hole in it, with soft wood crumbling at its heart, but branches carried healthy leaves and fabulous fruits. Woodlice can often be found among rotting leaf litter and in dark, dank parts

Growing fruit and vegetables seems to have really caught the public imagination. I do hope this isn't just a fad and really becomes a practical, viable and rewarding way of life for millions of new gardeners.That's one reason why we have launched

, lettuce, rocket, mizuna, chives and other herbs.Strawberries are in flower, and good blossom on my apples, pear, peach and plum has now turned to promising little fruits. I think it's going to be a good year for fruit.Canes of raspberries, blackberries

by planting an earlier ripening 'Opal' and later ripening 'Marjorie's Seedling', so I'd hoped to be enjoying plums from mid-July until September. My 'Opal' was planted about five years ago, but fruit has been non-existent until this year. Having waited

and peppers as there are so many varieties to choose from. My favourite sweet red pepper (or capsicum) last year was 'Bell Boy', which had large green fruits that ripened to red. They were delicious in stir-fries and Thai curries - our family favourites

outside had produced four or five fruits. Now this I had to try.Unfortunately their melons were trial varieties, and until the trial comes to an end in a couple of years we won't know whether any of these will be introduced to the gardening public